[xyzcf]

Hello lost one and welcome to Hero's Spouse.

I really hope someone can support me I am so lost still.

You have come to a very good place for support and understanding from others who were just as lost and confused as you are. This site, and the people I have met here both virtually and in real life really helped me heal and accept that MLC is a real thing, not just about buying a "red sports car"...the stories are eerily familiar. Not many people in the outside world understand, and they just want you to move on..people who love you want you to be safe and happy...."he doesn't deserve you"......they will say.

As you have read a great deal already, you have also recognized "I know that the person I married is still in there deep down"...I think we hope this to be true and for those whose marriages do reconcile, that seems to be what their experience is...but, for all the similarities, each of our stories are different.

I liked what thissucks said "Trust what you can verify, your intuition and yourself.  This is a long and difficult journey."

The hurt, the pain, the devastation both to us and our families is heartbreaking. When I found a therapist that was gifted in treating trauma and PTSD, when I realized that  this was indeed a horrific trauma to me and our daughter, I started on the very long and slow road to recovery.

My belief is that families are vital to preserve. Thus, he continues to participate in our family life and is welcomed to be a part of our family. There is no right or wrong answer here and at times, it was terribly painful to have contact with him, but whenever I reevaluate what is best for this family, it was to help maintain ties, and to help our daughter to continue to have a relationship with her dad...even though for many years he disappeared from her life as well.

But each person will discover for themselves..not because others tell them to...but because they will know what is best for them and their kids.

There is still love for the man I was married to for 32 years..and have been separated from for almost 16 years. But there are no expectations of anything from him.

Take really good care of yourself. Physically, exercise and have some stress releasing methods such as yoga or meditation. Find new interests, new friends..be open to the world and all that it has to offer. Travel to new places if you can afford to. Let him be. At some point you will realize that talking to him is useless, he will change his mind from one moment to the next and often will not remember what he said to you a day ago.

As for the burn out "professionals"...we went to marriage therapy twice...our "therapist' told my husband on the second visit, that it was time for him to get in touch with his "bad side"..I kid you not!

One of the best things my present amazing therapist suggested was that I can change my mind from one day to the next whether I wish to see him or not. There need not be something carved in stone that says I can never see or talk to him again. Indeed, he has consistently seeked me out, recently sharing something that astonished me concerning how much he trusts me....I don't reciprocate that trust in him...but then a sad reality of being an LBS is that I no longer trust people..and that is probably a permanent thing for me.

My BD was in 2009. It took me a very long time to accept and to get "better" because the shock was so great and none of it made sense...but you will look back, 3 months, 6 months, a year and you will be able to see how far you have come. Be patient and kind with yourself.

[lostone]

Hey KD, thank you so much for writing to me.

At some point, we notice we have been a bit neglectful or the other person flags it with us, and we seek to correct it. But for some people, they see the distance as a portent of abandonment - which they have a pathological fear of. They don't bring it up directly, because they are terrified of rejection (the sibling of abandonment).

This is interesting, because he DID bring it up with me. We were in a negative cycle whereby he was cold, critical, and dismissive towards me (I mean to the point where I would say something to him and he wouldn't even acknowledge I had spoken), yet he was saying we should spend more time together.  I was the avoidant one by then, because honestly it wasn't that much fun spending time with him only to be emotionally rejected. 

Of course, at the root of this, there's immaturity in how they communicate. Their coping skills are pretty poor (likely you did a lot of the big C coping in your relationship?) and they don't express their needs directly. That's why most of us here were blindsided.

This however is definitely the case. He is super dismissive avoidant - to the point where I would raise issues in the relationship for years and years and he would deflect, defend, or minimise. Nothing EVER got resolved. Like we would fight and then withdraw and then pretend nothing had happened.  So I just gave up raising stuff with him. I made my peace with all this, focused on the things I could control, found joy and  made happiness. He .. never told me he was so unhappy (just things like "we're getting a bit distant" until he had his full blown affair.  Then he got smoke blown up his ass and told how great he was and that was addictive.

However - and this is the weird thing - there is still so much care and respect between us.  He says ILYBNILWY but also "I won't rest while you're unhappy". He says I'm wonderful, special, kind etc. And he's suddenly started actually saying sorry for all the above. (He was ALWAYS a "I'm sorry you feel that way" apologiser). He did monster briefly but it was never as bad as others I've read about. I mean now he's monstering in a way I suppose with his "our relationship caused my burnout" which is a convenient narrative to deflect responsibility away from himself. But he can't seem to say a single bad thing about me.

[lostone]

Hey Treasur, Thank you for replying.  I have thought a lot about a few things that you said.

The thing to watch out for imho is getting sucked too deep into some of the BS. Most of us do for a while; tbh it’s a normal reaction to a shocking event to try to work out what caused it, what it is and how much we were part of that cause. Why do most of us do that? Imho couple of main reasons….trauma triggers a bit of our brain to think that if we can figure it out, we can fix it…or at least control it in some way.  The second reason is that our spouses almost always look for someone else to blame bc it’s easier psychologically than admitting to being a crappy kind of human who did some very bad things. So they tend to engage in quite a lot of deceit, gaslighting and false equivalence to justify their actions. Oh, and some sterling levels of self-pity too.

Yeah. I definitely recognise myself in this.  I took on WAY too much blame. WAY too much.  When this all first started happening, I was looking at it through the lens of just the affair and affair fog.  I dissected my role in the distance that crept between us.  What did I contribute to his narrative of never being good enough? How did I make him feel so unseen and unappreciated ? Yes, it's true that I probably took him for granted, and I worked to change that.  Because it's genuinely not how I wanted to treat my spouse.  I wanted to treat him how I thought he deserved to be treated as my partner of many years.  So I listened to all the things he was telling me and I worked hard to correct them.  But I also had needs (related to his cheating), and he couldn't meet those. He would just shrug and say things like, "I guess I'm not as good a person as you" or slide back into justification and blame shifting and call me "too intense".  Oh, it seems so obvious now. But at the time I was trying to save my family.  I'm angry - with myself mostly - in hindsight.  I'm a lot more detached now than I was in those early months.

When you are not in the sandpit, it will be easier to see that the ‘big’ question which brought you here of MLC vs marital breakdown does not matter as much as it feels like it does right now. Bc the factual effect is much the same regardless. Your h has - at a bare minimum based on what you currently know - decided that his marriage and fatherhood are no longer what scratches his existential itch. He has had an affair, lied for a long time and is barely visible as a parent. He has decided that his feelings and needs are more important than anyone else’s feelings or needs. And that he doesn’t even have to adult enough to have a plan even if that means leaving you and your kids spinning in the wind. I am so sorry, but based on those facts, regardless of the cause, you have nothing to work with currently.

This is the bit that has been sitting with me since I read your reply. You're absolutely right. What does it matter what the cause is or the label when this is the reality of the situation I'm in NOW.  This is radical acceptance, right? Things just are the way they are and whatever psychological analysis I have about it ... what does that change? He is NOT interested in reading anything about relationships or psychology because he's a unique unicorn where nothing applies to him 

You keep reminding yourself over and over that your h is now a proven liar and no longer worthy of your unsubstantiated trust. Which means you stop believing ANYTHING he says unless it is independently verified. What his therapy told him? Blah blah. His opinion of you? Blah blah. How he feels about anything at all? Blah blah. Whether he will actually show up on Friday to see the kids? Blah blah. Any promise or agreement or plan he commits to that involves you, your finances or your kids? Blah blah.

Yep, I know you're right.  He actually looked me in the eyes last week and answered something I asked him in a way that made me think he was lying - and it was completely unnecessary.  He's shown himself to be able to lie to my face over and over. Blah blah is the absolute right way to think about it.  I think he's lying to himself too though. This burnout clinic that apparently told him to go on dating apps? That seems ridiculous to me so I think it's another distortion of the truth he's tangled up in.

But every moment you are thinking about him is a moment taken away from figuring out how to sail your own boat through the life storm he has created for you and your kids. You gave him a chance to approach the situation like an adult who wanted to prioritise his family…..sadly, that was not the choice he has made. 

Yeah this is 100% it. I need this $h!te to not live rent free in my head anymore.  I'm scrolling the facebook groups, reddit, this site, trying to find my own experiences reflected back of me.  I think it's a normal phase when you're cast into such a storm but it's time to start working through it and reducing it.  I'm focusing on the kids - honestly we are closer than ever before and I know how much they are aware of me being here for them. My 13 year old thanked me this morning for "everything I am doing" (she's incredibly emotionally able, unlike her dad). We are creating new rituals, new memories.  The thing is I have to continue to coparent with this person, and that makes it so hard to detach completely.  I kind of wish I would never have to see or talk to him ever again, but we have years ahead of working together for our kids. While he's only seeing them a few hours a week and not (yet) able to have them for sleepovers, ultimately we are going to end up with some sort of shared custody arrangement (which breaks my heart because I don't want to see them any less). Our MC (who we don't see anymore) is skeptical that he'll actually step up and arrange any sort of routine. So far it's been completely ad hoc (emails "can I see the kids on Saturday") things like that.  I kind of wish it stays like that - as annoying as it is - because I don't want to lose time with my babies.

[lostone]

They need a story to explain to themselves why they are a good person but yet are cheating/lying/leaving their spouse and kids. 

Hey B.  This is a really useful line just on its own - to remind myself that the story is a STORY.  I think he's suffering from identity collapse from the way he's behaved so he's writing a story in his head to tell himself he's still a good person. The truth is - maybe he's not actually a good person.  Like maybe I need to let go of my  idea about who he is/was and just embrace who he is NOW. He's a serial cheat, he can flat out lie to me, his kids, his family, and he's abandoned me and the kids.  That's who he is right now.  Thank you

[lostone]

Oof. These are difficult questions.

How much do you feel in limbo right now? And about what?
How easy or difficult are you finding it?
Is there a cost or big risk to it?
What do you feel might shift you out of it? Or something that you feel you need to know bc if you did that would help?
What would be a marker of ending any limbo for you, emotional, mental and/or practical?

- I guess I feel mostly in limbo about where we stand. We are still legally married.  We have not yet done the requisite legal stuff to indicate we are officially separated. Nobody has officially changed address. The last time I asked him what he was telling people, it was "I am not living at home anymore".  Are we broken up? Are we officially separated? Who knows.  This is also impacting the kids.  Because when he moved out it was, "I am taking some space to find out why I am so unhappy".

- Difficult. I am a person who craves certainty anyway but like - friends don't know, neighbours don't know. Some family don't even know.  Kids say to me, are you and dad getting a divorce? Can you just decide?

- No, not financially or legally. I have advice on both of those matters and I feel well protected. At the moment I am in the family home with the kids, and our financial arrangements are still as they always were.  I am pretty secure on all this. In the case of divorce, I would be able to probably negotiate a way to stay here with the kids, or be able to buy something smaller further out from the city, both of which are fine options.

- I guess in some way it would be easier if he would just finally say, "we are getting a divorce". But he won't say that. I don't really want him to - I want him to come to his senses and fight for his family (haha I know this is not going to happen). But if he would just say "it's over" at least the limbo would end. Yet I don't want to be the one who does that - mostly because I want him to own the decision himself. He is the one who has done all this. If he wants out, he needs to be big enough to call it himself.

- The other question I have is about all his STUFF. Like his clothes are still in the drawers in the room. His home study is still intact. He basically left with enough clothes for a week and his laptop.   Now this means he has access to the house all the time of course.  But do I keep his stuff in the bedroom or move it out? Why should I have to go and find packing boxes and pack all his clothes up for him? And what does it signal to him if I do that?

I feel like we are in a game of chicken sometimes and I hate it.

[lostone]

Hello xyzcf and thank you for replying to me. Gosh you've come such a long way. I'm so grateful for all the wisdom of people who are replying to me here.

My belief is that families are vital to preserve. Thus, he continues to participate in our family life and is welcomed to be a part of our family. There is no right or wrong answer here and at times, it was terribly painful to have contact with him, but whenever I reevaluate what is best for this family, it was to help maintain ties, and to help our daughter to continue to have a relationship with her dad...even though for many years he disappeared from her life as well.

But each person will discover for themselves..not because others tell them to...but because they will know what is best for them and their kids.

Yeah I am struggling with this so much. He wants to continue to do things "as a family" but my instinct on this is no - you didn't want your family anymore. It feels like cake eating to me. It's free emotional labour from me.  I'm enabling it every time he asks to see the kids - even if it's inconvenient I always make it possible and encourage them to see him. I tell them in their grief how much he loves and will always be there for them.  But I cannot spend time together as a unit of four. I just can't.

Take really good care of yourself. Physically, exercise and have some stress releasing methods such as yoga or meditation. Find new interests, new friends..be open to the world and all that it has to offer. Travel to new places if you can afford to. Let him be. At some point you will realize that talking to him is useless, he will change his mind from one moment to the next and often will not remember what he said to you a day ago.

This I have been getting better at.  I have a very tight knit community around my gym and I go 5 days a week and always train with the same people.  We've also started other sporty things - rock climbing, acrobat class, handstand class.   I started a weekly shared meal with some people in my community. The kids are being shown that we are holding space for grief and acknowledging it but we are also living our lives and making new rituals and memories together. The kids and I went away together over Easter and had a great time.  We are close.
 

[KayDee]

Hey KD, thank you so much for writing to me.

At some point, we notice we have been a bit neglectful or the other person flags it with us, and we seek to correct it. But for some people, they see the distance as a portent of abandonment - which they have a pathological fear of. They don't bring it up directly, because they are terrified of rejection (the sibling of abandonment).

This is interesting, because he DID bring it up with me. We were in a negative cycle whereby he was cold, critical, and dismissive towards me (I mean to the point where I would say something to him and he wouldn't even acknowledge I had spoken), yet he was saying we should spend more time together.  I was the avoidant one by then, because honestly it wasn't that much fun spending time with him only to be emotionally rejected. 

So, he brought it up by being cold, critical and dismissive? Or he brought it up and then became these things? Neither are particularly mature or productive. And I would say, another indirect way of communicating that catalyses abandonment - because your your natural response was to retreat. My stbxH became the same about 6 months before BD. I remember saying to him at breakfast 'if you are not going to talk, do you mind if I read the news?'. During that time, it felt to me that he managed to spoil, what would previously have been a nice day together, with criticism and mood. I think this was depression, yes. Also a sort of attention thing -  the indirect 'cry for help' BUT also, for sure he was already dismantling me as his dearest, as he had a fun buddy EA. I like you, started to back away from him, because he was a like a dark cloud a lot of the time.

You ask later, in response to Treasur, in the context of limbo, what to do about his 'stuff' and your wish for him to initiate things. The wishing him to do one thing or another is probably the thing you need to let go of TBH. A good approach for me was to always ask myself 'am I doing this to help myself'. I just focused on what action and outcome supported my healing. So, yeah, I too didn't think it was down to me to pack up his stuff, but he used said stuff to pop in all the time, to pick it up, one sock at a bloody time. I was on edge all the time and knew that - packing it up = peace. I was very strategic like that. I have never been mean to my stbxH, and, like yours, he is (in MLC-land) not a disrespectful to me, I just know I can no longer rely on him for anything. Accepting that early and doing things solely for you, and the kids, is really helpful.

[UrsaMajor]

Yeah I am struggling with this so much. He wants to continue to do things "as a family" but my instinct on this is no - you didn't want your family anymore. It feels like cake eating to me. It's free emotional labour from me.  I'm enabling it every time he asks to see the kids - even if it's inconvenient I always make it possible and encourage them to see him. I tell them in their grief how much he loves and will always be there for them.  But I cannot spend time together as a unit of four. I just can't.

Oh boy.... Been there, done that. got the T-Shirt - to the point where MLCxW would always call be to come fix something in her apartment or help her with her dog or whatever. ..... It took a slap in the head form a well-meaning person for me to realize I was being used . I had been fired form the position of caretaker and no longer needed to be available at her beck and call. Naturally, if it concerned my/our kids, I would be there and take care of things but for the every day, mundane tasks, she fired me form that position so why should I continue to our effort into a bottomless black hole?  She did NOT take kindly to the fact that she then had what she said she wanted - the chance to prove she could do it alone......

As far as "playing happy family"I did that until I just couldn't any more. I had a discussion with my daughter and her therapist about that too because my daughter complained that I should be able to throw a joint birthday party for her (again) and she couldn't understand why I wouldn't. I had to explain that 1) I am in a relationship with someone else now, 2) mom wanted out of the relationship in the first place, and 3) it was not healthy for her (my D or myself to go play pretend that everything was all fine and happy when it wasn't. D's therapist backed me up on that as well and said that the reality of the situation is that mom and dad are no longer together and that means the family unit has changed.  Some people can do that and it doesn't appear to affect them. I am not one of them. Trying to coordinate something with my ex and then spending significant amounts of time together putting on a show is detrimental to my own mental and emotional well-being. I need to be mentally and emotionally stable and happy in order to support my kids.....

[Treasur]

Thank you for sharing your current thoughts about those difficult questions, my friend. And I emphasise CURRENT bc they are just that. As you sit with them, you may find they evolve into different shapes and that’s ok. That’s completely normal when you are surrounded by such a lot of uncertainty - in him, in the situation, in you. You are very early on in this whirlwind and I hope it helps to know we get it.

I’d also bet money I don’t have that your honesty in sharing those first thoughts will help others reading along, many of whom are not yet ready to post here but are struggling with very similar conundrums.

I agree with KayDee - in the spirit of holding up a mirror from over here in the cheap seats without judgment just to encourage you to see your own thinking as you try to figure stuff out - that the centre of some of your thinking is about a kind of waiting for him. Waiting for him to own his actions and some of the effects. Waiting for him to see what he is risking and change course. Waiting for him to call it a name that makes sense. Waiting for him to act or feel or think something other than what he seems to be doing, feeling, thinking or not thinking currently.

And of course you can’t in reality control any of that. Not one jot of it. It will happen with and in him regardless of what you do or how long you wait. Or not. That’s a tough pill to swallow for all of us. It’s an outside thing for you, like the weather, isn’t it? And I’m sure it feels a million miles away from normal.

As KayDee said, the next step in your own thinking will probably be a bit like the decision to pack an umbrella or not, to start to see glimmers of what works best for you right now regardless. And it sounds as if you have done glimmers of that - your instinct to say no thank you to collective ‘family’ time for instance bc that doesn’t feel right for you. And it’s ok to keep adding ‘at the moment’ or ‘as things currently stand’ to your choices bc it’s ok to accept that your choices may evolve and change and that you have the right to change ypur mind.

For most of us, surviving this experience tends to force us to have to dig quite deeply into our own gut instincts, our own values, how we take care of our own most pressing needs and wellbeing, and why we think how we think. Never heard anyone say that’s a quick or easy process lol.

So, for instance, if you decide to call yourself ‘separated’ bc it is helpful, do so. If you find that you need to tell people who care about you bc you need their love and support, do so. If you feel better with his stuff out of your bedroom/house, do so. And do whatever works for you entirely regardless of what you think he may think, do or say. Bc tbh the reality is that he has done many things unilaterally without regard for what you might think, do or say….thats the reality of someone severing their boat from ypur boat, isn’t it?

But we do all understand that it takes a while to figure this stuff out bit by bit.

A story in case it’s helpful….years on, I have absolutely no idea at all if my former h ‘owned’ anything at all. He did eventually file for divorce bc ow unbeknownst to me wanted to plan her wedding 😜 Having said that, even having filed, he was consistently unclear and unreliable about doing anything much - from dealing with legal paperwork to packing up his stuff to signing paperwork to sell the house. I have absolutely no idea at all what he was thinking or feeling, then or now. What I do know is what the behaviour looked like, regardless of his words which often said something different. What it looked like was someone who blew everything up and then assumed I would pack up the rubble neatly. And that in reality he had little or no concern for me or my family or our friends or stuff or house or old life at all. I chose eventually to do the lions share of rubble clearance truthfully. Not bc I wanted or expected him to ‘own’ anything in the way I thought he should. Or even expect that he would treat me with more respect and fairness bc I did (plot spoiler - he didn’t lol). But bc I reached a point where I respected myself and the marriage I’d had enough that it made sense to me to pack his belongings with care (and we had a loft full, he was a bit of a sentimental hoarder even of childhood stuff). But also bc I reached a point where I did not, could not, live in the rubble anymore. So I did what I did bc of what I needed, and I went about it in the way that I did bc of the kind of person I am and what I value. Nothing to do with him at all. And presumably he did what he did in the way that he did it bc of his needs and the kind of person he is. If I had waited for clarity or ownership or responsibility from him - and I did for a bit over a year, I think, which looking back was too long bc it caused more damage to me and my life, it made we weaker rather than stronger, more confused not less, but hey ho I did the best I could at the time! But if I had ‘waited’ for him? I could have still been waiting 8 years on.

In my book - and with a little time it got easier to see my own pages - someone who cared about me in any significant way, someone who valued my well-being and life and happiness even a bit, would not have been capable of treating me in the way my xh treated me. I certainly could not have done to him what he did to me if the situations were reversed. I genuinely don’t know if my xh ever loved me in the way I thought he did, the way I felt he did, the way it looked like he did to everyone who knew us. But what I did come to think was that nothing post BD had anything in it from him that I would call love. Or even like tbh. And that hurt a lot, big old tough pill to swallow down.

But it DID matter to me, and does now, that I retained some part of who I am on the way I responded. Regardless of what he thought or thinks now. And I don’t have to explain or justify that to anyone but myself.

And neither do you.
So it’s ok to figure it out in small steps, through trial and error, and by teaching yourself over and over to say ‘what is best for me and why/how?’ And then remind yourself that this is good enough right now x

[xyzcf]

It's in my nature to try and "understand" the craziness of all of this...eventually liking Ursa's phrase "trying to understand MLC is like trying to taste the color green".

You mentioned radical acceptance and that is key...we did not cause this, we cannot fix it. This is their journey and we  and our children suffer the damage from it.

My husband also did not take any of his things. This is quite common it seems..perhaps because they want a new life without the "memories", I don't know. You will know when it's time for you to pack up his stuff. I didn't want to do it, did not feel it was my "job" and I have a large house so I moved things out of sight and eventually got rid of his clothes and stuff.

I was able to keep the house which was really a good decision but not everyone will have the financial resources to do that, and some LBSers want a fresh start.

There are different views on the MLCer's ability to comprehend what their actions are and how they affect us. I think the concept that they revert to a younger version of themselves, someone of an age before they ever met us, fits what I have observed. You will read various "theories" but it really is a multifaceted disorder, in my opinion, without a specific cause that is identifiable..although there are several clues when I look back at his life.

Glad that you have a good group at the gym. I find exercise really helpful and the friendships I have made there and in other groups I belong to. My second therapist also was enormously helpful to my healing.

As I said previously, each person's situation is different.....listen to your inner voice and find what is right for you and your children.

My husband also didn't "monster" at me, I didn't see him for a long time which I needed. I did not want his "being" to have the control over my well being that it did after BD...when I was fearful of seeing him and I would go into fight/flight/freeze mode. I wanted to be able to be in contact and not have it send me down a rabbit hole...and so we do have this relationship ...I couldn't see never again seeing him, after spending so many years together and my daughter and I agreed that he can be included..as she recently stated "he's a lost soul".

You sound like you have thought out and taken care of financial safety and your own well being. Glad that you found HS to share in your story and get some support for an end to a life that makes no sense, to me at least.